Remember the Scar
by August8th
Summary: Son, this world is rough and if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough and I knew I wouldn't be there to help ya along. So I give ya that name and I said goodbye I knew you'd have to get tough or die and it's the name that helped to make you strong.
1. Intro

A young man confronts a young bear out in the northern Canadian wilderness. He is a hunter, he is there to exist with nature just like the bear in his sight. Although he is young he has developed the skills to be completely self-sufficient and survive off of the land. He has learned many lessons and realizes that there are many more to come. The vertical scar across his right eye was his personal insignia of the battles he has fought with those that had been hunted in the past. The young bear is unsuspecting, he does not realize that his life is about to become much more difficult.

A river bend presents an ethereal autumn scenario with the changing colors of the leaves and the rays of the new sun starting to breach the trees. The bear approaches the apex of the bend and stares down both sides. He lowers his head to take a drink, but pauses and looks behind him one more time. As he laps his first sip he tastes something unusual. A blade juts from the water and cuts the bears nose off. He sprawls backwards and rumbled a painful moan. He kept his eyes on the water throughout his pain. Swatting at the surface a few times he watched for any movement. The threat seemed to have disappeared and he was naturally inclined to attempt to pick up any smells. He lowered his head close to the water again and tried to sniff. He could faintly taste blood, but had lost all sense of smell. One footstep was all he heard behind him, rearing his head and immediately swatting his paw, but the hunter was already on his back. A second later another painful sensation. The hunter sliced a vertical line across the bear's right eye and then released his grip. Sprawling back in pain once more he roared and stood up. The hunter stood in front of the bear and looked him in the eyes; he made sure they would remember each other, and then pulled out mace that blinded the bear in his remaining eye.

As the bear shook his vision back in and forms began to take shape he realized he was all alone again. He attempted to sniff and couldn't. He roared in anger, and could remember the face. Remember the scar. It became apparent that he needed to adapt without the sense of smell and half the vision that he had previously been accustomed to. Although an animal cannot feel the human emotion of hate, the feeling that swept through the bear every time that face crossed his mind was the equivalent.

This is what the hunter had counted on and planned for. He wanted an opponent when they were both ready, years down the road; a worthy adversary for the final fight.

The bear wandered throughout his native forests for three days and caught nothing. He was weak from loss of blood and lack of food, but the rage that had come to consume him, the hatred for the hunter had grown to such an intensity that the adrenaline in the bear kept him going. He approached a river, further down to his right were rapids flowing in his direction. He could see salmon heading for those rapids. The water was shallow and the urge to eat was strong. He stood at the edge and swatted the water, even though the bottom was visible, and stepped in. The current was stronger than expected, but his eye remained focused on the jumping fish. He pawed at them as they passed, with almost every attempt he would lose his balance but he tried for almost half an hour. He could barely see what he was aiming for and the water had begun to freeze his paws. Shivering he persevered for another half an hour; everything began to spin. The freezing water, lack of food and loss of blood had completely drained him and his limbs were about to collapse. He remembered the scar. A great roar crept up from within him, his pupil dilated, with one snap of his jaws he caught a fish in midair. Gulping it back, his left ear tweaked. Another he grabbed in his jaws and crushed down. The fish flapped a few times and died. He carried it back to the shore and took his time eating it.


	2. Chapter 1

"Get up! Get the fuck up! Now you little shit..before I slap ya so fuckin hard..hear me? Get up!" From the darkness of sleep the groggy silhouette of an old man with a shotgun in one hand and a hunting knife in the other clarified slowly. A moment later the sound of the knife dropping and the old man grasped onto the boy's shirt and flung him across the room. He hit the wall with such force that it rendered the boy temporarily unconscious and he woke up to the old man slapping him across the face and holding tightly onto his shoulder. He did not struggle, he knew that to instigate any form of rebellion would put him in a much worse situation.

"Now you an' me are goin huntin today boy, an you an me are bringin home dinner, y'er?" The boy nodded in silent obedience. Without another word he was pushed out the door, got into a truck headed and towards wilderness. The only sounds to be heard the entire ride were that of bugs hitting the windshield.

The bivouac that the old man had chosen was an isolated area. Densely wooded, the old man hacked a path for about mile into the thickness and then stopped at a clearing, it was the edge of one of a part of the forest.

"We're stoppin till sunrise. Tonight we let them come t'us." The old man sat and without saying anything the boy was scouring the land in an attempt to scavenge firewood.

They set up necessities, shelter and heat and defense. The lean-to only provided them with cover from above and behind, but had been positioned to detour the winds whilst maintaining a sufficient range of view. This trip was not sleep optional, because none of them had been. Each time it would be a little longer, a little more intense, and in the end a sense of euphoric empowerment in the belief that there was something to be learned from each time the trip was over.

Once their site had been setup they took a walk to establish familiarity with the territory. Slowly creeping along the edge of the wood, scanning through dense brush, looking for movement, listening for everything, they had walked for only a few miles when the sun started to go down.

"You know where you are boy?" The old man asked. The boy confirmed by nodding.

"Good," the old man said as he handed the boy a shotgun and one round. "Now finish the box search, got me?" He said as he pointed into the darkening forest.

The boy took the shotgun, loaded it with his only shell and initiated the safety. Without a second glance the boy began to creep into the forest. He knew the distance they had walked, all he had to do was walk three times that, in the forest, turning right each increment, and it would lead him back to the start. He also knew that the potential for the old man to be lurking somewhere to make sure he did not understep his journey was high. He had been tested like this before; but he had never been given the shotgun for this kind of search before, and it made him wonder what the old man knew about this particular forest.

By the first right the sun had completely gone down, and although it was a considerably bright moon, the canopies blocked off any aiding light. As he reached the point to turn he heard rustling to his left. Immediately the boy grabbed the closest stick that appeared to be sturdy and crouched down. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing and listened and the noise got closer. The speed of the movement and lightness of the rustle on the forest floor indicated that it was more than likely a wolf or something of the same stature. The boy stood up, his eyes remained closed. He raised the stick and steadied it. A snap of a twig only a few feet away from him was his indication to throw. The stick flew through the darkness and upon hitting the target and aggravated squeal emanated throughout the woods. Then growling and then it was the animal that was listening. Smelling the scent of it's attacker it began lunging in the general direction. The boy heard the oncoming footsteps and realized this was not a wolf. Wolves did not attack an aggressor unless in a pack, this was something else. Seconds later the wolverine found the boy, whom had adopted a low stance and was aiming another stick in a defensive position. The shotgun lay unseen by his side. The boy focused his attention on the two pale white streaks in front of him and jutted the stick outwards. It connected and impaled the animal. Immediately after, the smell of musk filled the surrounding area. As the boy continued his journey he kept the wolverine on the stick, and carried it off of his shoulder. The smell was too strong to ever be able to hide from any prey at this point in time, so the rest of trip was made hastily. Only a few hundred feet after turning his next left he stopped. Something was following him, he had given away everything about his position now, breaking twigs and rustling leaves along with the trail of scent. He could hear steady footsteps snapping carelessly behind him. The safety was uninitiated on the shotgun. He listened carefully as they got closer and closer. He dropped the wolverine and raised the shotgun. The moment the carcass hit the ground the approaching footsteps stopped. The sounds of the forest again came back into focus, and all that could be heard were the crickets, the wind through the tress, and the distant howl of wolves. One footstep was all he heard and he was spun around, disarmed and butted in the face; rendering him unconscious.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Life had been hard for the entire natural upbringing of the bear; as it was in the wild. Situations arose that as were unpredictable as they were common. A sudden flash flood would sweep through the forest; it would take every ounce of energy to survive and more than once the reality of death became a morbidly apparent image in the mind of the young bear.

As he grew older and wiser the techniques he had learned from his upbringing had all proven necessary for survival. Every hunt was for a purpose, every kill was a continuation of another life. Every lesson was retained and every significant moment in his life was accounted for. The credibility of primitive animal instincts has been grossly underestimated in studies. They can potentially retain as much information as an adolescent human; the memories and events were paramount in the upbringing of the animal. The most basic of lessons instilled: recognition that if you're dumb, weak and slow you don't last long. Find cover, find food, find familiarity and defend it with your life.

One of the pinnacle moments in this particular bear's life was the moment he realized he was completely alone. It had been two days from the time his mother had left the den to the time the cub crawled through the entrance into a blinding landscape.

The green and azure world around him, completely unfamiliar, was vacant and quiet. The cub attempted to follow his mother's scent and had been successful in doing so until a river two feet deep and flowing fast blocked his path. For a full grown bear the river was tame and predictable but for a cub it was a deathtrap; a current would sweep him away to unpredicted territory. Only a brief moment of concern for the unknown crossed the cub's mind and immediately followed by the desire to be reunited with his mother.

With a leap the cub jumped into the river and began paddling as hard as he possibly could. The current was strong enough to slowly push him down river a half-kilometer by the time he had made it half way across the river. The river had been continually shallow enough to allow the cub to touch the bed for most of the time.

He was pushed over a jagged rock; lacerating his stomach. The gash ran the entire surface of his belly and a soft red stream began racing in the current in front of him; carrying on for some distance. He persevered through the pain and near drowning and paddled as hard as possible. He veered closer to the river bank, legs exhausted, out of breath; his objective so close he could almost smell the scent of his mother just ahead.

As he reached shore he was now almost a full kilometer down the river. He crawled from the muddy bank and shook himself vigorously. The cub was too young and inexperienced to grasp distances but an instinctual compass led him back towards the point he had inevitably wanted to get to.

He traced the smell of his own blood; the particles had waded and collected in small nooks throughout his journey upriver. His wound had been relatively minor, only scraped flesh, none of his internal organs had been damaged but a significant amount of blood had still been lost. Painful but not fatal. After an hour of sniffing up the river, the gash had completely stopped and began to coagulate.

He reached the point of river bank where his mother's scent emanated from the ground. Once associated, this scent lead him directly to his objective.

The moment he discovered her body was the moment of realization that he was no longer part of a whole; he was completely alone. A pool of blood around her was still warm, her eyes were glazed, staring into the great beyond. The cub nudged his mother a few times and then let out a sorrowful cry.

A shot rang out and the cub felt the bullet pass through the top of his left ear. He got low to the ground and scanned the area furiously. He could hear two instances of movement on opposite sides of him; men had been laying in wait, not particularly expecting the cub, but any animal to scavenge the carcass.

The cub took off into the brush, gunfire behind him could be heard ricocheting off of the trees as he ran deeper into unknown territory. Soon he was off track, completely lost and the sun had begun to sink and succumb to the transition of night.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

He woke up in a daze; everything was quiet, the sun was just starting to come up and in the dark forest shapes and forms became recognizable. The shotgun was gone. His disorientation played with his head, he could not decipher his bearings for a few hours.

Instead of wandering around aimlessly he sat in the spot he had awoken and scanned the area. Nothing moved except the branches moving in the breeze. An attempt to recollect the moments before being rendered unconscious had failed. The last thing he did remember was walking with the wolverine impaled on his makeshift spear and the brief moment he heard a footstep behind him.

As his temporarily induced amnesia began to clear he stood up and felt blood trickle down the back of his head. An open wound, still very apparent had been unnoticed until then. His face was bruised from the butt of the gun, but he ascertained that he must have fallen onto something hard upon being rendered unconscious.

He removed his tattered shirt and tore in into strips appropriate for a field gauze and wrapped it around his head tightly enough to stop the bleeding but making sure not to restrict blood flow.

Upon investigating his surroundings he realized he had been dragged to his current location. A faint trail on the forest floor indicated the direction he had come from. He began to trace the trail in hopes to establish a proper bearing of his location.

An hour of following this trail had proven successful but he had come to a division. Three trails forked off into completely different directions. Whoever had taken him had obviously come back and made these trails to confuse the boy. He stood at the fork and looked around for any sign, some clue of the true path to follow. The leaves and dirt on the trail he had come from bore directional resemblance to only one path, it seemed the obvious choice.

Another hour of lurking through dense forest, relying only on the subtle evidence left a short time ago; suddenly he stopped. Movement to his left, multiple movements indicated it was a pack. He crept up the trail slowly, cautiously, until he had a visual of the sound.

The barks that emanated a short distance away were eerily aware of the boy's presence. Once he had obtained a visual; his orientation clarified. South of his position he spotted the carcass of the wolverine being devoured by several wolves.

The wind picked up from behind him and carried his scent directly to them. The alpha raised his head and glared fiercely, meeting an ice cold stare of equal ferocity.

He slowly crouched down and scanned the ground with his hands for any kind of defense. There was nothing even close to improvisational defense. The Alpha male howled long and loud, the message had been interpreted. With wild eyes and flailing tongues the pack formed and advanced towards their target.

His contingency plan up until that moment had been to use his hands, taking on one or two animals at a time was all of the strength and skill he knew he had in him at that point. A few meters away was a tree that was feasible to climb. He ran and jumped at the trunk, immediately shimmying himself upwards. The boy felt the warmth of the wolf's breath at his right calf. A sharp but brief pain emanated up the boy's leg. It was only a quick nip but the fangs had penetrated deeply enough to cause agonizing pain with every movement.

He climbed further up the tree to a branch that would sustain his weight and sat upon it looking down. The wolves circles the tree, looking up with ferocious grins, the taste of fresh blood was palpable in the air and it drove them into a frenzy of yelping, growling and attempting to claw their way up to their next meal.

With every few beats of the boy's heart blood would drip from the fresh wound and spatter onto the faces of his aggressors. This fueled the fire for the wolves, it instilled a sense of commitment in their prey. They knew if the prey is bleeding, it's only a matter of time before the prey is dead.

His head wound had slowed to a seep. He carefully took the cloth off of his head as to not re-open the wound and made the cloth into a tourniquet around the base of his leg. Several minutes after tightening the cloth the blood had ceased.

He waited for the wolves to lose interest and hoped they would focus on the carcass of the wolverine once again. After an hour they slowly turned away from the tree and one by one headed back to the meal they had been interrupted from. The last to leave was the alpha male; he looked up at the boy and bared his teeth as if to signify that they were only on hiatus, this was not finished until one of them was dead.

The boy waited cautiously for a while after, it could have been completely possible that some of the pack laid in wait. He broke branches and threw them down and gauged the reaction of the forest floor. After several attempts he decided the wolves were not waiting for him.

With his adrenaline dissipated the climb down was painful and slow. He tried not to aggravate the wound as he made his way to the ground and attempted to rely on upper body strength to hold on.

The moment he reached the ground he attempted to find some form of defense. One of the branches he had thrown down was straight and sturdy enough to act as a spear. He picked away at the sharper of the ends until he was satisfied the his weapon could provide adequate counteraction.

He made mental note the if his bearings were still accurate according to where the wolverines carcass laid, he predicted he could find his way back to the campsite within five hours.

Weak from lack of food and loss of blood the boy stumbled through the forest; attempting to remember where he had last left his box search. He estimated his encounter with the wolves had been approximately high noon, he had traveled for three hours in an attempt to get back where the old man had started him.

He reached the treeline and recognized the open field in front of him, but no lean-to or campfire confirmed this was the right location. He scanned the treeline and searched for anything to guide him. He had never been put to such a test, but believed that the situation was exactly that. He knew to pass was to survive, failure meant death, by the forces of nature or by the hand of a hardened old man.

He walked the treeline and found the area they had set up camp the night before. He had been taught to leave only one single minute trace of any location he stayed. All that was left of the campsite was a strand of thread hanging from a tree. This was not a mistake, nor was is something the old man had overlooked upon departure. The foliage surrounding had been aggravated afterward, returning it to it's natural state, a few days later it would be impossible to track that location as a resting spot.

Loneliness was a new sensation that swept through him. His journey had taken him to the initial point he had started but was far from over.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The sounds of the forest began to change and adjust to the oncoming night. The collective diurnal voice quieted and the nocturnal world consumed the forest; beginning the nightly reign of insects and creatures created never to be seen.

The cub had reached a point in his journey where lack of guidance, food and shelter overcame him. He stopped and laid down, completely exposed, night-vision still underdeveloped, vulnerable to anything that saw him first. Three hours had passed, just enough to instill the smallest amount of energy to continue, but he awoke and dragged himself in a direction instinctively dictated.

He picked up the scent of a rotting carcass on the warm autumn wind. Ignorantly he succumbed to his overwhelming hunger and weakly hustled in the general direction. Half a kilometer away, a doe had been killed and picked away at by smaller animals for a few days; colonies of maggots had already begun to form in the eye sockets. He pounced on the carcass sending the flies into a fury and began indulging on the freshest meat he could sink his teeth into.

It was only a few minutes of feasting before the good times had come to an end. An off-putting sound echoed in the surrounding forest; a wild feline howl, followed by the low idle of a ferocious purr began to close in, getting louder by the second. The cub could only perceive what he could reach, only a rough meter in front of him was visible but his audible capabilities had developed slightly faster. Dry leaves being crushed underfoot of the lynx; dead set on her destination. She had picked up the scent of the doe as well. It was an equal opportunity for any creature in the vicinity and her three young cubs were mewing in hunger a few kilometers away. It had been the only real opportunity in days to appease the constant hunger they battled; it could not be postponed any longer nor could anything detour her from obtaining a few morsels. Life feeding on life to live; the way it will always be.

His adolescence had only exposed him to enemies as meals, brought to the den by his Mother. Usually faceless shapeless hunks of flesh dropped in front of him and his siblings. He was fully aware of the lynx's' approach but had no knowledge of how to defend from the attack. She easily maneuvered around the bear and pounced on his back, anchoring her claws into the cubs sides. Although not an ideal position to go for the throat, her routine persuaded her to latch onto his scruff. By no means was this fatal but by every means it was agonizing.

The cub yelped and attempted to buck the lynx off. Every attempt just dragged her claws farther along his sides and deeper into his hide. She hung on, her jaws still maintaining an ever tightening grip until the cubs fatigue began to slow his pace. She jumped off and adopted an almost prone stance, baring her teeth with ferocious intensity directed at the blind and confused cub.

At that moment a feeling of immense rage and dominance overcame the cub. Adrenaline pumped through his body, the blood soaked fur in his back raised, a fire crept up his spine and into his throat as he let out his first battle cry. This did not phase the lynx as initially desired; the meal a few feet away still a prominent reason to continue the struggle.

She was close enough to the cub to be visible, they stood their ground, staring at each other, pacing in awkward circles. His jaw hanging open, small sharp teeth exposed; her tight pursed scowl reflecting back. For a moment nothing moved save the reciprocating tail of the lynx. She leaned back and with all of the force she could muster in her hind legs lunged herself at the cub.

Response time had been multiplied by the adrenaline, his right paw lifted and swatted her torso with such force it sent her flying a few meters into the blackness. She had not expected successful retaliation; it had momentarily taken the wind out of her. She circled and snarled and the bear rotated and followed; blood spattered the ground in all directions.

Another quick leap aimed directly at the cub's throat, he backed into a defensive position and their jowls met in a violent embrace. The cub bit down hard on the lynx's mandible and shook as fiercely as possible. Pops and cracks reverberated through both of their skulls. Her teeth had pierced and torn slits into his tongue but he maintained his hold and used his weight to his advantage.

She was producing a wild muffled scream as he continued to shake until her jaw had begun to tear away from her face. It was at that point her only viable option was to admit defeat, as imperceivable as it was at the beginning of the interlude it became the only realistic outlook when surviving for the necessities; and then she considered the lives of her cubs and the fact that she needed to survive to ensure that her young would prosper.

She gave up and went limp, crying in pain; the cub let go and watched her stumble away. Her jaw unable to close willingly, blood and saliva leaving an almost aromatic trail of scent to be followed by predators for days to come. The cub licked the blood from the circumference of his mouth and stood his ground dominantly; barking with intense aggression and territorial connotations. Pain and fury were the only feelings running across his mind. There was no fear, no confusion; it was the first of many confrontations.

An unknown feeling swept through the young bear's mind as he remembered seeing his mother lying dead, shots ringing out, running. He was alone in this world and the sanctity of his own life had been brought into light. He would survive this, he would live as he felt he was intended to live.

The lynx stayed only a moment longer, with a long low whine she turned and disappeared into the darkness from whence she came. The cub stayed and devoured more of the carcass; every bite was misery. The muscle structure of his face had been strained to the point of over-exertion and no matter what flesh he consumed he could still taste undertones the lynx's blood .


	6. Chapter 5

A subtle smile crossed the boys face as signs of progress became apparent. The road he had come to was the same as he had taken with the old man. Five kilometers separated him from his initial starting point. He had veered a few degrees opposite of his intended direction. He had established due North and decided that heading was his most viable option.

Tired, hungry and past the point of being able to ignore the pain, the boy had let down the majority of his defenses and ignored his disciplinary upbringing. Occasionally he would let his feet drag, or fall into soft earth leaving obvious tracks.

He reached the point where the old man had stopped the truck. Tire tracks indicated his three point turn and direction of departure. There were other vehicles that had used the road recently as well. A glimmer of hope streaked across the minutely optimistic part of the boy's mentality. The road was still in use, albeit rarely, but he determined that at least four vehicles had traveled the route in the past twenty-four hours. It was a minimum of a days walk to get to the turn this road had started and he deduced the likelihood of a passer-by every six hours, optimistically, he may be able to hitch a ride for at least a few kilometers.

Two hours longer and he had seen no-one. Looking behind him seemed more effort than it was worth; his body hurt, his mind exhausted, sleep was becoming imminent. The breeze picked up and the gamey smell of a hunter's campfire wafted through the air. The immediate salivation the boy experienced angered him. He was still coherent enough to have the pride of overcoming primitive thought patterns.

Hunger has always been an elusive perspective; previous tests to find his fine line between starvation and death. He knew he could survive three-hundred and fifty-seven hours on water alone, ninety-six on absolutely nothing, while having to constantly endure grueling physical labor. His last meal had been forty-six hours prior.

His wounds had made every hour eternally longer; the infinity of minutes dragged along with the pace of his feet. Almost subconsciously the boy veered off of the trail and made his way towards the scent. His voracious appetite overtook any of his pride. He was willing to beg, borrow or steal at least minimal sustenance.

He dug into the forest against the wind, relying on on his sense of smell. A few hundred meters off of the road a small independent campsite came into focus. There was no movement nor sound but a makeshift fire-pit had been very recently set up. The smell of fresh venison stew was so close that it made the line of caution, care and obvious exposure dissipate.

Walking into plain view of an unknown situation had been something he has never attempted after adolescence. Every engrained instinct was screaming vulgarities in the voice of the old man. 'Are you fucking stupid boy? If'n you do survive this I'll kill ya for ignorance!' Among other quotes and pinnacle moments of brutal guidance recurred through his concious.

He scanned the area. A small makeshift house with a working door was on the west side of the small property. Before approaching the food he crept up to the house, put his ear up to the perceivably fragile wall and listened. No sounds of movement or even quiet snores could be heard. The boy proceeded to gently pull the door open. Inside there was a cot, a wooden table an assortment of tools used for gutting and skinning, and a small unlit kerosene lantern.

Despite his teachings the boy had almost completely let his guard down, his conscious focused so primarily on food that he ignored the protocol he had been taught when approaching a vacant but in use scenario.

On a normal basis the boy would have retreated to a hidden location and would bide his time until the proprietor of the site returned in order to provide accurate reconnaissance and gauge situational threat.

He did none of this and made a bee-line for the pot of stew. He could see no signs of bowl nor ladle, but hunger bypassed any of the deeply intertwined instinctual cognition and he dove both hands into the boiling slurry. He had consumed half of the pot when cognitive thought reasserted itself. The realization of exposure immediately jumped to the top of his priorities and he searched the surrounding area for cover. He found a spot and waited. Only a few minutes later he could hear the unkempt footsteps of an individual under the assumption that the only present threat was nature itself.

The hermit became visible a few minutes after audibly pronouncing himself to the surrounding forest and made no gestures of secrecy. The boys' first instinct was to subdue the unknown in order to learn about him on very one sided terms. He had been taught only the most brutal interrogation techniques, there had never been room for a good cop scenario. It was always through physical submission would any of the people he trained with would succumb to telling conceivable truths. An outside voice spoke through his deepest conscious. It told him to approach the situation as he had ever done before. The fact that karma was as foreign and unknown as the location the concept had been derived, something inside him, paternal amiability as the only viable thought process that enveloped his thoughts. The boy revealed himself an announced his unpredicted intentions.

"Do not be alarmed." Said the boy.

The hermit was immediately up in arms. His defensive position assumed, ready to kill or die for his small piece of illegitimately acquired land.

'Go away! I'll kill ye with me bare hands! Go!' The hermit screamed. The boy did not budge. He maintained a smile which although intended to promote an extroverted approach was actually emitting the perception of insanity. He knew no other way to smile besides a cheek splitting psychopathic grin. It did nothing to improve the comfort level of the situation.

'What do ye want from me?' Screamed the hermit. 'Whatever it is ye'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers!' Merely reciting the most aggressive Alpha male line he had ever known.

'I want to thank you.' Said the boy in a calm respectable tone whilst maintaining the same psychotic grin he had introduced himself with. 'I have taken some of your food; I needed it. Do you understand?'

'You take something without askin boy? I understand that ye are about to be one dead son of a bitch if ye don't be on yer way right now.' The hermit scowled, all the time backing away and blindly shuffling his feet in an attempt to find some kind of improvised defense.

'I am not here to fight, I am here to thank you, and apologize for taking was not mine.' Said the boy.

'Ye mean to tell me you got what you needed and decided to stay until I came back? You're a fool boy, a damn fool to think I'd accept any fuckin apology from a goddamn thief!'

Neither of them spoke or moved for a moment. The boy had hoped the hermit would possibly embrace a sense of humanity; accept the fact that the boy did stay around to apologize by choice. He could see the hermits' thought process begin to change to a different persuasion. His facial features showed consideration of outside possibilities of resolution without violence.

'Ye will get no acceptance from me boy, and I am I no mood to take your life, so I'll ask ye one more time, leave.' Followed by a disdainful 'Please.'

The boy saw an opportunity for an interaction he had never before had the chance to embrace.

'Sir, I will only be willing to leave after you have accepted my apology, I have wronged you, but not out of spite only out of necessity. I have a long journey ahead of me, I needed sustenance to continue.' The boy said softly.

This aggravated the hermit in a way. He could not accept some strangers apology because in his mind catering to the request of an intruder was submissive and showed weakness. With as controlled of a tone as he could muster he spoke again.

'Boy, you want nothing more of what I can offer. In fact I guarantee that anything I have for ye to take will provide you with nothing except meager bits of uselessness on your journey.' He could not prevent his seething aggression to come out at the end of his response.

The boys' hand reached out to the man, he fully extended his arm and left it in the air for some time. His plans were completely ad hoc and he could not predict with any certainty the outcome of his actions, but something in his conscious tol him that this was the right thing to do.

'What not? The hermit said in an almost passive tone. Not with a considerable amount of inquisition but lacking the former hostility.

'I want to shake your hand. Do you know what a handshake symbolizes?' Asked the boy.

'Nay.' Said the hermit. 'Nor do I want anything to do with your idiotic rituals.'

'It signifies that I do not come with malicious intentions, I come as a being of peace and inquiry.'

'No one in this world lends themselves to peace!' The hermit screamed. 'You're all out to fight and kill and take what doesn't belong to ye! I'll have none of your offerings boy, I can trust ye as far as I can throw ye.'

'If you turn your back on everything you cannot gain anything in life.' Words summoned from deep within a part of the the boys' conscious that he had never been to before, or even contemplated.

'You're confusing me boy, why do you keep fucking persisting? I want none of what your philosophies offer, you expect me to trust you? You're trespassing! You've stolen my food and now you harass me with a peace treaty; all the while grinning like a fool who should know that only the ignorant can truly be blissful.'

The smile faded and the boy stared silently at the hermit and for a brief moment nature was audible over argument. The boy turned and walked into the forest east of the site. Immediately after the hermit had lost visual of the boy he began setting up defenses in case the boy returned.

Setting up modified Punjab sticks incrementally around the perimeter of his shack and firepit; instead of smearing the points with feces he attached poison ivy. He had only hoped to incur a longstanding irritation but did not focus on trying to induce fatal infection. A twine trip wire system was also set up, a scavenged can with rocks attached to the end closest to the shack. It was primitive but effective. He waited for hours for the boy to return; his twisted perception of all humanity kept him from believing any positive outcome could stem from outside interaction. He had believed it for as long as he could remember and it intiated a passionate rage that veered out of control and exploded in his conscious every time any aspect of the thought of the outside world arose.

The hermit awoke to approaching footsteps. He picked up a sharpened stick and cried out, 'Away with ye!' Toward the direction the noise was coming from. The boys' figure took form in the light of dawn. He was carrying something on his right shoulder. As he closed in on the proximity of the bivouac he clarified and the carcass' of a few rabbits, a squirrel and a bird of unrecognizable species were all skewed along a makeshift spear.

'Before you attack me, please let me offer a gesture of apology an appreciation.' Said the boy.

The hermit could not conceive the altruism, it confused and angered him but he did realize the fact that this gesture was sincere, yet he maintained his pessimistic defensive stance.

'What do ye bring boy? Poisioned rodents for me to feed and perish on?'

'These animals have been captured and killed without the use of chemicals of poisons. They are safe to eat and they are what I consider to be a payback for the food I have taken from you.' The boy gestured to the hermit with a shrug of his shoulder and spun the raw kebab around towards him. Neither of the moved. After a moment the boy proceeded to drop the animals onto the ground with a soft thud.

The hermit maintained his gaze into the boys' eyes, he stood stationary and did not emit any gesture of acceptance. The boy realized that his attempt at interacting and instigating something positive was in vain and he began to turn and walk away.

'Ye aren't like the rest of them are ye?' The hermit questioned.

The boy stopped but maintained his direction. 'I have not had the opportunity to know the rest of them, I cannot say I have even had the opportunity to know myself.'

'Your philosophy is different than those that I have crossed paths with before; I have seen everything I did not want to see and experienced parts of life that would be better off not ever happening. You persist for reasons unknown and I will never give you my trust, but I believe you mean what you say.

The boy did not respond for a moment. An appropriate response was not clear.

'What are you doing here?' The boy asked.

'What do ye mean?' Reciprocated the hermit.

'I mean why do you live a life of solitude? What has caused you to shun the rest of the world?

The hermit paused and looked up beyond the sky and sighed.

'Boy, the only thing I know is that everything and everyone are here for a limited amount of time and from what I've seen everything and everything is a waste of time and effort. People willing to stab each other in the back for the sake of their own preserve. People killing each other in the name of religion and government, people wasting their lives on the inane and shallow ways that benefit not even themselves. I live here because I cannot live among them.'

The boy had to yet again think of a response that adequately reflected the hermits viewpoint of the world, he could not grasp the philosophy of the outside world because he himself had never been exposed to society itself.

'Where are you from?' The boy asked.

The hermit responded with no delay.

'I come from a place where broken dreams come to stay broken. There is no hope to fix anything we can solemnly hope to rectify in pieces where a mass of un-influential people call 'home'. I come from a place where everyone wants what no one can have; a place where when something is admired it no longer maintains its luster.'

'You left because you wanted to obtain and cherish what you've hoped to achieve without having to lose the luster?' The boy asked trying not to sound confused.

'I do not hope to achieve anything,' Said the hermit, 'I just want to live my life unmolested by the masses.'

The boy stood in silence, staring into the dense brush in front of him. After a moment he said, 'There are many places I have imagined to be full of people I would rather slay than trust. In the time I have had in this life I have never seen any of them; until recently would not have dared to even contemplate what happens in the unknown. I have lived a destitute life following doctrines of pain, misery and isolation. I have never cherished anything so much that when I lost it I felt any sense of despair. You have loved something and have seen it crumble in front of your eyes, you saw the opportunity you and the others that surrounded you had, and you are hurt by the fact that it wasn't embraced as you would have seen fit. For all that was wrong and terrible with your life, at least you had the choice to live among many and learn from few.'

The hermit looked at the boy briefly and sat down slowly. He crossed his legs, let his harms rest on his knees and sighed as he leaned forward. The boy maintained his standing position and turned to watch the face of the elderly man in front of him. No words were exchanged. Nature had been the predominant sound, and within that sound the words that did not need to be spoken were exchanged.

The boy realized that the hermit had listened and been effected. He felt that he had paid his dues and turned away from the small campsite; disappearing with only the fain sound of his feet impacting softly against the forest floor.


End file.
